Grazed from StarTribune.  Author: Steve Alexander.

In an effort to make computing services nearly as reliable as the telephone, CenturyLink last week opened Minnesota’s first high-reliability “Tier 3” public data center in Shakopee.

CenturyLink, based in Monroe, La., is best known to Minnesotans as the state’s largest telephone company. But it has bet its future on the belief that data center services such as “cloud computing will make up for a decline in the use of its traditional phone service caused by cellphones. And it believes opening a rare Tier 3 data center will be a lure for computing customers in the Twin Cities…

Grazed from TechRepublic.  Author: Nick Hardiman.

This year container-based technology announcements went crazy. This isn’t the craze for packing data centers into shipping containers (that’s so last decade) — this is the Linux OS container craze. What’s a container, and why is everyone so excited?

A brief history of fitting IT supply to demand

Ten years ago computing capacity requirements were calculated for the next business year. The process of estimating what would happen in the next year was practically impossible, but something had to be done (and is still being done in the enterprise)…

Grazed from AssociationsNow.  Author: Ernie Smith.

A year ago this week, a pair of shocking revelations about the federal government’s surveillance capabilities came to light.

The double-whammy of reports exposing the National Security Agency’s bulk metadata collection from phone calls and internet connections became one of the year’s biggest stories. It also introduced the world to Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked the information on the spy agency’s surveillance to journalists and continues to evoke strong opinions on whether he’s a traitor or a hero.

The disclosures also kick-started a tech industry lobbying effort that continues as a bill aiming to roll back the NSA collection program moves through Congress. Here’s the latest:..

Grazed from InsideBigData.  Author: William Wallace.

As the technology world stares down exascale computing the need for faster and faster interconnect solutions is critical for delivering the requirements of super low latency and high throughput. Mellanox offers end-to-end InfiniBand and Ethernet products aimed at the cloud and Big Data. We caught up with Eyal Gutkind, Senior Manager, Enterprise Market Development of Mellanox, to learn more.

insideBIGDATA: What products does your company offer the Big Data sector?

Eyal Gutkind: Mellanox Technologies offers analytics and file systems accelerations for Big Data deployments, using Mellanox 40Gb/56Gb Ethernet and InfiniBand solutions. With Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA), Mellanox enables an efficient data transfer mechanism that allows applications, such as IBM BigInsights, to increase customer data ingress rate by more than 35 percent and analytics data processing by 50 percent compared to other data transport solutions…

Grazed from BusinessWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Silver Peak, the leader in accelerating data over distance, today released a new infographic that illustrates a smarter approach to the IT challenges of branch offices. Drawing from its recent “Branch Office Blueprint” whitepaper, Silver Peak recommends a mix of software, virtualization and commodity hardware to maximize agility while minimizing costs.

• View the infographic: http://blog.silver-peak.com/smarter-branch-office-infographic

Many attempts to address the IT challenges of the branch office rely on expensive, proprietary “all-in-one” appliances that package server, storage and networking along with the vendor’s core capabilities. Though proponents of this approach tout simplified deployment, it often forces organizations to double or even triple their capital expenses while constraining their options…

Grazed from TheVarGuy.  Author: Elliot Markowitz.

The IT space is growing more dangerous. As much as security protection has advanced, new, more sophisticated threats are cropping up every day. While this is always an opportunity for solution providers, it’s time-consuming to make sure customers are protected—especially as the world moves more toward mobile devices and cloud computing and needs to deal with Big Data.

These issues are being brought to the forefront of the industry as researcher Gartner gets ready to kick off its Security & Risk Management Summit in National Harbor, Maryland, later this month…

Grazed from SysConMedia.  Author: Sarah Lake.

Moving your business to the cloud is probably an idea that would set you on course for better profitability. However, this transition is far less easy than simply choosing a cloud vendor and moving a portion of your business activities to the cloud.

You need a clearly defined cloud strategy in place if you are to leverage the immense potential of the cloud computing for your business. More importantly, you need a qualified person to be in charge of this strategy to ensure its successful implementation…

Grazed from CBROnline.  Author: Duncan MacReal.

New IT trends, including cloud computing, bring your own device (BYOD) and the Internet of Things (IoT), could kill off swathes of stack vendors as numerous start-ups emerge to cash in, one software development specialist has warned.

"When we look at business competition, each wave of these trends and changes brings about huge numbers of start-ups and new competition that we’ve never seen before," said Charles Race, SVP EMEA, Informatica…

Grazed from ITWorld Canada. Author: Andrew Brooks.

From its origins as an online bookseller, Amazon.com Inc. has gotten its finger in a lot of pies. Among other things, it has now become a major purveyor of cloud computing services to large organizations. As we reported a few weeks ago, even the Ontario government has moved its own web site onto Amazon cloud servers as part of a broad program of data centre downsizing.

Amazon wasn’t shy about hyping the cloud at a recent technology forum, according to a blog posting on our sister site IT Business.ca. The company was one of the presenters at Computex, the massive computer trade show held in Taipei, Taiwan this week. It’s the largest ICT event in Asia and the second largest in the world…

Grazed from PCMag. Author: Samara Lynn.

Perhaps your small business network is ready for an upgrade. A few years ago, having five computers in the office set up to share files might have been sufficient, but your data needs may since have grown to the point where you need a full-fledged file server. Or maybe you want a server and website for your killer new custom app. Instead of going out and buying new hardware—not to mention hiring new IT staff to support your growing network—consider a hosted platform service.

Hosted platforms are a subset of cloud computing that let you virtually set up technologies such as servers, Web apps, databases, storage, virtual networks, and more. The beauty of these hosted platforms is that IT and businesses can deploy these technologies without purchasing hardware or managing them locally, which often requires hiring additional IT staff. Instead, the hosting company, also known as the hosting provider, is responsible for maintaining the hardware and data center at which your in-the-cloud tech resides…